Emissions of the greenhouse gas methane due to human activity were roughly 1.5 times greater in the United States in the middle of the last decade than prevailing estimates, according to a new analysis by 15 climate scientists published Monday in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The analysis also said that methane discharges in Texas and Oklahoma, where oil and gas production was concentrated at the time, were 2.7 times greater than conventional estimates. Emissions from oil and gas activity alone could be five times greater than the prevailing estimate, the report said.

I’ve been meaning to post for awhile on “Gas Rush Stories,” a series of simple, but captivating short films on America’s gas drilling boom made by Kirsi Jansa, a Finnish video journalist currently living in Pittsburgh.

The time is right because Jansa is in the running for a $10,000 grant from the Sprout Fund that could help her sustain and refine this effort to portray the many meanings and realities surrounding hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking, in Pennsylvania communities scattered over the gas-rich Marcellus Shale.